Campaign Idea

The Other Side of the Rainbow...

A game idea (currently just an idea) involving the fairy tale/fable/mythical lands of yore. All the realms of fantasy (from Oz to Neverland to Narnia) can be found, all of them in the same realm and existing side by side. But they aren't the lands of song and story. They're the reality of those lands, the world where Oz got Dorothy pregnant, and where Azlan was hunted down and skinned by agents of the Empire, a powerful and terrible forced (aka the British Empire. Azlan met fox hunters. They won.)

Most of the creatures of legend aren't as powerful as they used to be, according to their own legends. (No one knows why.) They are more powerful in our world than in theirs, and have always been so, especially in our imaginations. But when their lands began to die, they looked for new sources of power, new ways to fight the Empire, and pulled in raw imagination. Children went catonic , and permanently feed people or places the energy to withstand the Empire. It's a holding action at best, and the various mythological beings and creatures are getting scared.

What is NOT in the other world: Gods. Olympus, The Heavenly Throne, the Jade Throne, etc. may all exist (and probably do, since if one imaginary thing exists then, well, there's no reason all the others don't as well), but they're somewhere else and don't influence any events in Earth or the OtherLand. Well, not until the Empire finds a way to reach them.....

What is here: Folk and fairy tale creatures, primarily. Oz, Narnia etc. are relative newcomers, and not that powerful despite the stories (read: lies) written about them by people of our world. Middle Earth doesn't exist, because it wasn't intended primarily for younger readers. It's children who initially bring the other worlds to life, or so it's commonly believed. You can fund the hundred acre wood, Tam Lin, vampires and what have you, but in general the older the myth the power likely it is to be found and the more powerful it is. (So the Big Bad Wolf could be killed, but there are a lot of them out there....)

The Empire is basically Rome crossed with the darker side of Britain (& c.) colonialism and Disney Corp. They want to make the world of fables and dreams into what THEY think it should be. They're all adults, and they're pretty damn ruthless.

Humans who come across to the OtherLand are powerful, as the OtherLand creatures are in our world. In many cases, this means they get magic or whatever. Most vampires and other transformed humans are humans who went across and can't come back and tend to be very powerful and dangerous. The Empire has used this to their advantage, and their most terrible warriors are the masters of the Word. (They're lawyers. That should be explanation enough.)

The problem: I do not know enough about Narnia etc. to do justice to them. Plus, other myths (Japanese critters and the like) I don't know too much about, and they'd be around as well most likely.

I'd probably use a variant of Risus, because it's a really simple rpg and simple is better in fitting in with the ideas of a fairy tale style land. (Variant being it would have some form of health system.)

I also have no idea what PCs would be :P Humans, yes. But kids? Adults? A mixture of both? No idea. Thoughts welcomed :P

For best creation, it'd have to be a wiki ....